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Generally speaking, the more data a business collects about itself, the more likely they are to succeed, if the data is used correctly. And as a starting out entrepreneur, the data capture often gets missed. However, if a business wants to succeed and grow quickly, they are more likely to achieve this if they have all of the data on sales, finances, KPIs, meetings, expenses, staff, contacts, leads etc. The following are a few tips to help you best use this data.

“If you torture the data long enough, it will confess” – Ronald Coase

Tip 1: Know Your DataFirstly, you must know the broad range of data your business could be capturing and put processes into place to capture this. Data can range from sales values per customer, average payment times, social media interest, website analytics and the cost and sales made from events, promotions and advertising. As you can see, not all data captured needs to be financial, but when analysed and acted upon can lead to increases in profits.

Tip 2: Frequent Real-Time Analysis Now you have the processes in place to capture the data, you should run real-time analysis. Ideally, you should get a member of your team to collate the information and provide you with a weekly/fortnightly/monthly report for you to scan and analyse. The information should be presented in an easy to read format, where possible pictorially, so you can quickly analyse and make decisions. Data linked to staff, team or business KPIs should be highlighted to ensure that they and you are on track.

Tip 3: Act Knowing and analysing the data is not effective without acting upon it. Once you have analysed the data and reports, action plans need to be put into place to address or improve any areas. Examples include:

Increasing KPI targets as the team are achieving the initial targets set

Amending web pages as the data shows a high proportion of customers leaving on a particular page

Increasing or decreasing certain advertising due to the cost per sale ratio (remember to take into account the life time value of customers and wider issues when deciding to remove an advertising route, or any other process)

Amending the posting time for social media to improve impressions and interest

As you can see, a lot can be achieved from effective use of data and data capture and analysis should be prioritised within your business. Companies can invest heavily in the tools to capture data, only to waste it by not making full use of it. Businesses just starting up should consider capturing data in accounting software and a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system and in quick time delegate this task out in order to focus on the reports and graphs the data produces.

We hope you have found these tips useful and are able to use them to improve your business and investments. Don’t miss out on future tips - subscribe to Turner Invest newsletter and follow us on social media.

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